Chuck Sweeny: Believe it or not, U.S. gun murders are way down

An old friend of mine lamented Tuesday night in a Facebook post: "What are we going to do about the gun violence?"

Tuesday had been a violent day in TV Land, with a middle school shooting in New Mexico and a gun homicide in a movie theater in Florida. It was grim.

I wanted to respond to my friend and did some research. And I quickly found a study by the respected Pew Center, a not for profit, research organization. What I read confounds the widespread belief that America is degenerating into a modern version of the Gunfight at the OK Corral.

Guess what? Gun murders are not up. They're down. Way down.

"Gun Homicide Rate Down 49 percent Since 1993 Peak; Public Unaware," headlined the Pew study, released in May 2013.

"Gun homicides, violent gun crime and violent crime overall have fallen since the early 1990s. While there is little agreement as to the cause of these declines, the aging of the population, declining crack cocaine usage and rising incarceration rates may have each contributed," Pew said.

And yet, 56 percent of us believe such crime has gone up; only 12 percent believe it has gone down.

"Women, non-whites and adults ages 30 and older are the most likely to say that gun crime rates have risen. Women and older adults are among the least likely to be victimized."

So, the people least likely to be victimized are the ones most likely to believe gun crime is up!

The study says gun homicide "was the fifth leading cause of violent death in 2010. The vast majority (84 percent) of gun homicide victims are male, with seven out of 10 are ages 18 to 40. Younger adults account for a disproportionate share of gun homicide victims relative to their share of the population."

However, while blacks are 13 percent of the population, they are 55 percent of the victims of gun homicide. Hispanics are 17 percent of the victims and 16 percent of the population. Whites are 65 percent of the population but just 25 percent of the victims.

Here are more "bet you didn't know" facts: "Gun suicides were the fourth leading cause of violent death in 2010 after motor vehicle accidents, unintentional poisoning (including drug overdose) and falls. As gun homicides have fallen, gun suicides now account for six-in-10 gun deaths, compared with about half in the mid-90s."

Read the study, "Gun Violence in America," at pewsocialtrends.org. You'll find that not only is gun homicide down, all violent crime is way down. The study is easy to read and there are lots of charts and graphs. You will learn, for instance, that "In 2010, there were 3.6 gun homicides per 100,000 people, compared with 7 in 1993 ... In 2010, the Centers for Disease Control counted 11,078 gun homicide deaths, compared with 18,253 in 1993."

Gun crime is still too high in the U.S., population 314 million. By contrast, Canada has just half of a homicide death per 100,000 people.

In Canada, population 35 million, "just 158 homicides were committed with a firearm (in 2011,) 13 fewer than the year before and the lowest number of gun-related homicides in almost 50 years," said a 2012 United Press International report.

While guns accounted for 27 percent of Canada's 598 homicides in 2011, more victims - 35 percent - were stabbed to death.

Any homicide is one too many, but let's recognize success when it slaps us in the face. We are getting safer as a society, and that's a good thing. Now, if we legalize recreational marijuana use, perhaps we can put the tax-gorging criminal justice industrial complex out of business, or at least cut it down to a fifth its size.